


a brighter wound

by arbitrarily



Category: Captain Marvel (2019)
Genre: F/M, Fight Sex, Post-Canon, Power Play, Under-negotiated Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 04:13:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18066377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arbitrarily/pseuds/arbitrarily
Summary: She has yet to find a galaxy big enough for the both of them.





	a brighter wound

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "[Yesterday's Wake](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLmEp883Yro)" by Son Lux.
> 
> Also, I know nothing of the comics; my knowledge is limited solely to the movies.

 

She knows that voice. She freezes as she steps into the bar. She watches the bartender place the ordered drink down on the bar, the lone patron go still like spotted prey.

She had heard the gossip. Of course she had heard it. Watered down in its passage through lightyears and various galaxies, but the word was that Yon-Rogg’s return to Hala had not been a happy one. The Supreme Intelligence had wanted first its pound of flesh, and then it had wanted Yon-Rogg gone. Exile. Exile, following torture.

So this far-flung speck of rock, cast off on a planetary rim, is the site of Yon-Rogg’s exile. It also just so happens to be where Carol is currently scouting for potential Skrull refugee relocation. 

“Of all the gin joints,” she says to him, her body framed by the doorway and the dust the wind has kicked up outside.

“They do not serve _gin_ here.” His pronunciation of the word makes it sound as disgusting as it tastes, she thinks.

“And hello to you, too. Exile looks good on you, Yon-Rogg,” she says. That’s a lie. He doesn’t look all that different, at least at a glance, clothed as he is in civilian dress. His uniform is most likely still back on Hala. Stripped from him as well as his position. But he is slumped at a bar mid-day with a glass in his hands, so there’s that. He’s also glaring at her.

“Keep your voice down,” he snaps.

She crosses her arms over her chest. Glares back. “Would you look at that. Is it possible you finally learned some shame?”

He looks at her like the question is beneath his consideration. “Hardly. If I have learned anything, it is to treasure my anonymity on this cesspool of a planet.”

Carol doesn’t move. There are four barstools between them and no other barflies. Not for the first time, she has the sudden desire to teach Yon-Rogg an object lesson on the meaning of shame. Defeating him once isn’t enough. She has more than a mild curiosity to know everything that would be enough to humiliate, to disgrace, a man like him. Based on the tension thrumming alive between them, she is not alone in this desire.

“You wanna step outside with me? I’d hate to ruin this kind fellow’s lovely establishment.” The tentacled bartender salutes her with three arms.

Yon-Rogg doesn’t move. “It cannot possibly shock you to hear I have absolutely no wish to follow you anywhere.”

She adjusts her posture. “Would you like me to make you?” She asks the question calmly, conversationally. 

He sets down his glass. Mostly full. Good to know. “I would like to see you try.”

Her fingertips begin to glow. Yon-Rogg is watching her carefully now.

“Take it out back,” the bartender gurgles. So they do.

 

 

 

This planet, a hacking blend of consonants Carol can’t remember without consulting her nav screen, is mostly abandoned. Out back behind the bar is just rock and dust and a shed on its last legs. Carol and Yon-Rogg walk slowly and separately out and away from the bar. It’s like the old days, she thinks unbidden. The same slow pace as they approached the training mats, only this time the conversation does not spark friendly between them.

“Your uniform is a bloody mockery.” Yon-Rogg is the one to break the silence.

Carol halts, even as Yon-Rogg keeps walking. She glances down at herself. She smirks when she lifts her head back up to him. He stops, too, several paces away from her. He turns to face her full-on. “And here I had thought I looked nice.” She braces her hands on her hips. “You gonna tell me to take it off?” she teases.

Nothing anyone else would notice about him changes, but she can see it. There’s that heat in his eyes now. He used to get like that sometimes when they would spar together. If she landed an unexpected punch on him, parried a hit he had expected to land. She’d feel that gaze on her, the heat of it. It was like another pair of hands. Good to know not all things change.

“Vers,” he starts.

“Carol.”

He doesn’t say anything at first. His face does something odd though. It softens, if only for a moment.

“You still have my blood in you, racing through your veins.” He says it lightly, even if the rest of him is rigid and careful. “Do you ever feel that?”

Carol cocks her head to the side. “Oh, is that what that occasional pain in my ass is?”

“You still think you’re very funny.”

“I have my moments.”

He points at her. “You use humor as a crutch.”

She rolls her eyes. He thinks they can go back to this—Yon-Rogg and his rebellious pupil. So much water under that bridge it’s flooded out. “And what do we call your reliance on grandiose speeches when we should be beating the shit out of each other?”

“Is that what we’re doing here?” He’s primed to fight now, too. He thinks he’s ready for her. 

It’s not that she misses Hala, it’s not that she can think of those six years without a sickening lurch inside of her. So many lies; it makes her ache. But standing here now, alone, with him, she misses it all in a way she hasn’t once since her memory came back. The guilt sticks in her; she hopes he’ll finally strike now. Give her an excuse.

“I thought that was what you wanted.” She’s goading him now. “A fair fight. Isn’t that what you asked me for? Well, here. I’m giving it to you.”

“Did you come here to kill me?”

Carol shakes her head. He can’t know why she came here, he can never know, but that’s just fine if he wants to assume it was for him. “You’re what I’d refer to as an unpleasant surprise.”

Yon-Rogg takes a step closer. She takes a breath in.

“You should have killed me, Vers.”

“My name is Carol,” she bites off. And there it is, that rage that catches her by the throat, tries to smother her in her sleep. Anger has warped her words, made them ugly, and Yon-Rogg smiles.

He takes another step forward. She readies her hands. “So emotional, still.”

She always hated that about him. Hates it even more, now. Taking the things she feels and the things that hurt or make her happy and turning them into weaknesses to be vanquished. She steps towards him.

“Yeah, yeah, but, then again, I was pretty emotional last time I kicked your ass, too.”

He strikes.

 

 

 

Yon-Rogg’s not pulling his punches, but she is. Power hums beneath her skin, desperately wanting release through her. She holds it back. For now, she tells herself. He grabs her by the arm, ready to yank it behind her back, but she breaks free, a sharp kick to his shin, knocking one leg out from under him. 

“Have you found yourself a Skrull companion to train with?” He’s winded, but he easily elides her probing thrust.

“Am I that noticeably better?” She punctuates each word with a jab to his ribs. A wheezing sound escapes from him that bleeds out into a high, cynical laugh. He is unbalanced. He used to fight her better than this. He is compromised. It’s this, of all things, that infuriates her, even if there is plenty enough about him already that has left her angry.

A swift uppercut catches him in the jaw. His head jerks back but the rest of him is unmovable. She kicks out at him, her leg raised, and he takes that moment to his advantage. He barrels into her, and she hits the ground, hard. His body is heavy on top of hers. Familiar. 

“And would you look at that,” he says, panting. She wriggles under his grip, and, _oh_. She can feel him, hard against her leg. 

Her mouth stretches into a dangerous smile. 

“Would you look at that,” she repeats, pushing up against him for extra emphasis. “I can’t lie, I always did wonder when you were going to bring that particular weapon out.” He glares down at her. She expects him to deflect, to hit her. Say something in his defense. _Biological responses are involuntary, Vers. Don’t take it personally_. She can hear him in her head already. 

Instead, his mouth twists. Instead, he kisses her.

Carol likes kissing, she likes to be kissed, but to call this a kiss feels like a mockery of _something_ , anything (love, maybe; affection, at the least). His mouth harsh and demanding on hers and her neck strains as she tries to first move from him, and then, to meet him. 

She waits for him to close his eyes. They’re still open, watchful, as his tongue pushes against hers. As he tastes her and she tastes him. When they finally flutter shut, she knees him in the gut. She can feel his breath on her face when he gasps and then grunts. She moves fast, the ground dusty and uncomfortable as she rolls him under her. She can feel the hard curve of him better between her legs like this.

It’s not like she never imagined more than one of their sparring sessions ending this way. She had liked the physical intimacy shared between them then, before she knew the truth. It’s not fair, how far the reach of betrayal is. How much it ruins. It’s safe to think of it now though, with his body caught under hers. She can think, back to those sparring sessions, when they would fight each other. The middle of the night and everything was narrowed down to her body and his. She came to know the heat of him, what his weight felt like when hers was trapped against his. What his hands felt like when they wanted to hurt her, wanted her to learn. What his face looked like when he successfully knocked her down. 

“You tried to hold me back. You lied to me.” She is all but spitting each word at him. “I trusted you. And after all of that, you think you can take more from me?”

She grips at his throat. She can feel the tendons flex. Her fingers bite into the cut of his jaw, the start of a bruise she’s left on him. With her free hand, she holds his hands down above his head. Her hand is barely wide enough to cover the width of both of his wrists; he is choosing not to move his arms. He watches her expectantly. 

“This time,” she says, “I get to take.” She lowers her mouth to his.

She is as snarling and cruel as he had been with her. No finesse to it, just gnashing teeth and wet, open. Conquering. Her front teeth catch on his bottom lip; his hips twitch under hers, so she bites down. The sticky, hot, sour taste of blood blooms in her mouth. His blood, hers. He bucks up harder against her and she grinds down onto him. Even through her suit, it feels good. Too good. He bats her hands away and she lets him. His own hands grab at her not to move her, but, she thinks, to hold her. His hands are hot on her hips, the span of her back, her thighs. She thinks: every place on her body he touches he has struck before.

She rears back from him, just as suddenly as this started. Both of them are breathing too loudly, louder than they had been when they were fighting. 

“I should make you have to beg,” she finally says, the words sticking behind gritted teeth.

“You think I would?” he says. His pupils are blown black, the light color of his eyes but a sliver.

“I think you should.” She presses her weight harder against him. She gives in to the temptation and lets a small burst of energy, a brief shock, caress his neck. He jerks under her. “I think you’re gonna do what I tell you to.”

She allows another minute frisson of static electricity to zap him. A warning. His face looks nearly blissful. 

“Take off my pants,” she says. 

His hesitation doesn’t last long. She keeps her grip tight and threatening around his throat, tighter still when she lifts both her hips and her weight off of him. His hands are as self-assured as anything, as used to her suit as she is, and he quickly shoves it and her cotton panties down her legs. He reaches with that same assurance between her legs.

“No,” she snaps. She squeezes his throat and he makes a quiet choking sound. “Now, you take off yours.”

And he does. Obedient, but not pliant. She has always known those to be two very different things. She can follow orders, but she won’t bend. She won’t bend. She should’ve told him that a long time ago. 

He is clumsier with himself than he was with her. He’s breathing hard and she can feel each breath against her hand as he bares himself to her. She wants him inside her. It’s the immediate, and the brightest, thought, hungry and wanting to consume her.

She settles her weight against him, lets him feel how wet she is already, and he does. His eyes screw shut and his neck arches under her hand.

“Vers,” he groans.

She wants to tell him to stop being so emotional. She wants to hit him. She wants to do so many unspeakable things to him. She grabs his cock by the base and she angles him inside of her. Six years of foreplay, she thinks wryly, near manically. She sinks down onto him in one heady, breath-stilling rush and she fights the urge to make a sound. 

“That’s not my name.”

 

 

 

She’s never known sex to be like this. For Carol, sex was always something fun—wild at times, never inhibited. There’s no inhibition here either, but it’s mean. No kindness, no give, but knowing now what she knows now, that has always been true between them. This is just another way to fight each other. 

She rides him. The stretch around him makes something spark up and down her spine and each time she tries to look away from him, her eyes return to him, as if against her will. All too quickly she begins to lose her rhythm and she leans down, her chest flush with his, his hands anchored on her hips.

It’s then that Yon-Rogg gets her under him. She lets him. He knocks what breath she had left out of her. She lets him do that, too. He angles his mouth at her ear, his hips still moving relentlessly between her own. Her body clenches tight around his cock, so close. 

“I am always going to be inside you,” he says. “Carol.”

She couldn’t stop herself if she wanted to. When Carol comes, when he makes her come, it feels like raw energy is coursing through her. Like he is coursing through her. She doesn’t bite down on the gasp of his name fast enough.

 

 

 

She gets her breath back, mostly. She pushed his body off of hers almost immediately after he came. She scrubs a hand over her face and she sits up. 

“I am going to give you something you never gave to me,” she says. “A choice. You can either come with me, and I’ll take you home.”

“To Hala?”

“To Earth.”

“C-53?”

“Earth,” she repeats. “You’ll work with us, you’ll help us, even if it’s to achieve a fraction of the tech the Kree have.”

He scoffs. “You’d put me in a cage.”

“Your other option,” she says, ignoring him, “is to stay here.” She doesn’t need to tell him that this is just another cage, even if you can’t see the bars. He knows it. That tired, frustrated defeat is back in his eyes. “We’ll pretend we never saw each other.”

“Why would I ever choose to go with you?” 

Carol gets to her feet. She looks down at him. “I guess I thought maybe a little bit of me was inside you, too.”

She turns to leave. She can hear him moving behind her. “It’s you, you know,” he calls after her. She stops. “You asked me. It’s you I see. It was you who tortured me and it was you who sent me here.”

Carol lifts her head. She barely looks at him over her shoulder. He’s just a shadow in her periphery. “That wasn’t me,” she says. 

“I gave you more than a choice. I gave you power.” Desperation has returned to his voice. She turns away from him. 

“Good-bye, Yon-Rogg.”

_Until next time_ , she doesn’t say. And then, with her strength racing through her, easy and familiar and hers, she is gone. 

 

 

 

 


End file.
